The idea of evolution was not coined by Charles Darwin – indeed in his day
the very term meant to unroll (e-volve) or to 'reveal' the divine plan.
His contribution was in marshalling powerful evidence supporting the fact of
evolution, and in devising a hypothesis explaining the mechanism of evolution
(the fact that all plant and animal species had arisen by this process of
gradual change). The publication of his book On the Origin of Species by
Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the
Struggle for Life in 1859 laid the foundations for modern evolutionary
biology.

Gregor Mendel was a member of the Augustinian monastery in
Brünn, Austria (now Brno, Czechoslovakia). He carried out
breeding experiments on Garden Peas starting in about 1856. He
carefully isolated plants and transferred pollen from one to
another, collected and sowed the seed and recorded the
characteristics of all the offspring. Through these experiments
he was able to demonstrate how factors were inherited
from one generation to the next, and his conclusions form the
foundations of the study of heredity and modern genetics.

Born in Hollywood county Down, Praeger was considered one of
the greatest of Irish field botanists. There is little known of
his early family life. He was a member of the Belfast Naturalist Field
Club from an early age and developed a keen interest in Natural History.
In 1886 he graduated from Queen's College in Belfast with a degree
in Engineering and worked for a time on the construction of
the Alexander Docks in Belfast. In 1893 Praeger moved to
Dublin and joined the staff of the National Library.

From the 1880's to the 1950's Praeger played a major role in the development
of Irish natural history. The Clare Island Survey (1909-1922), and the Lambay
Survey (1905-1906) were two projects he was involved with. He was also a prolific writer.
Two of his books, The Way that I went (1937), and Irish Topographical Botany

David Moore was born in Dundee,
Scotland. After serving his gardening aprenticeship in Scotland,
he moved to Ireland in 1828. He worked as assistant to James
Mackay at Trinity College Botanic Gardens at Ballsbridge.
Following that he was appointed as botanist to the Ordnance
Survey spending five years listing and collecting the native
plants of Antrim and Londonderry. In 1838 he became curator of
the National Botanic Gardens, succeeding Ninain Nivan. He
remained there until his death in 1879. During his tenure at Glasnevin orchids were grown from seed for
the first time.

David Moore was internationally respected as a botanist and received an
honourary doctorate from the University of Zurich for his work in
Crytogamic (Spore plants) botany. In the 1860s he collaborated with A.G.More of the Dublin Museum to publish, in 1866, Cybele Hibernica,
long the standard work on the distribution of the plants native to Ireland.

Botanist, colonial administrator and artist. He was appointed Colonial Treasurer, of the Cape of Good Hope colony (1836–1843).
On his return to Ireland he became curator of the Trinity College herbarium (1844–1866), and later Professor of botany. At the same time
he became Professor of botany to the Royal Dublin Society (1848–1866). He collected plants, including many seaweeds, in Ireland, South Africa, Ceylon,
Australia and North America. He wrote the first Flora of the Cape region of South Africa, as well the first Seaweed flora to
Britain and Ireland.

Plant collector, physician, forester. Henry obtained his medical degree in Edinburgh. In 1881, aged 24 he travelled to China to take a post as assistant medical officer with the Imperial Chinese Customs Service.
He collected plants in central and southern China, Taiwan and Hainan.
This was done in his spare time after his official duties, but nonetheless he collected some 16,000 dried specimens,
of which more than 1,000 species proved new to science.
He was appointed as the first professor of forestry to the Royal College of Science (later University College), Dublin (1913-1926).
As well as publications on the Economic botany of China, Henry also wrote an authoritative account of the Trees of Great Britain & Ireland (1906–1913) with H. J. Elwes.

Horticulturist, author, plantsman, polemicist.
William Robinson was not, as he occasionally claimed, a student gardener at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin,
nor is there explicit evidence for his exact origins. He was apprenticed at Curraghmore House (County Waterford), and later,
employed at Ballykilcavan (County Laois). He went on to found several journals, in particular The Garden and Garden Illustrated.

His influence on gardening at the time was profound. In 1870 he published a book entitled The Wild Garden, whose ideas are
still a strong influence on gardening today. He favoured the naturalistic style of planting over the formal parterres, carpet bedding
and dull shrubberies of the Victorian era. The most comprehensive expression of his ideas came with the publication of The English flower garden
in 1883, without doubt the single most important gardening book of the next century.

Frederic Moore, the eldest son of David Moore, was born at Glasnevin in 1857. His early years were spent studying and training at the famous Nursery at Vanoutte in Belgium and the Botanic Gardens of the University of Leiden.

When David Moore died, Frederick, who was then Curator at Trinity College Botanic Gardens, was appointed his successor.
Frederick became well known for his interest in Orchids and was responsible for setting up a world renowned collection of orchids
at Glasnevin.

Under Frederick Moore's curatorship the Botanic Gardens flourished, with many new plants introduced from abroad. He was
knighted in 1911 for his services to horticulture. In 1922 at the age of 65 Frederick retired from Glasnevin.

Walter Wade practised as a surgeon and man-midwife in Dublin around 1776.
In 1789 he began giving public lectures on midwifery and botany in Dublin.
He campaigned for a public botanical garden, petitioning the Irish parliament
in 1790. He was elected Professor of botany to the Dublin Society in 1796,
and became the first director of the Dublin Society's Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin
until his death. He gave ‘practical lectures’ on botany and agriculture in the
Director’s house at the Botanic gardens, a syllabus was published, and at one time
it became highly fashionable for Dublin Society to attend these early morning
lectures.

Richard Turner was born in 1798
into a family with long associations with the iron trade.He was an innovative designer,
and the high quality and decorative details of his glasshouses were famous throughout
Europe. His ironworks, the Hammersmith Works, were at Ballsbridge in Dublin.
Besides the Curvilinear Range here at the
National Botanic Gardens, his works include the Palm House at Belfast Botanic Gardens;
and the Great Palm House, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. His design for the Crystal Palace
at the Great London Exhibition of 1851 was only rejected in favour of that of Paxton on the
grounds of cost and speed of erection.

His intuitive grasp of engineering design, and his pioneering skill at producing curved glazing bars
of wrought iron to a standard plan, gave his buildings a lightness and elegance of design unmatched
at the time.

Lawyer, politician, and last Speaker of the Irish House of Commons (1800). John Foster was an avid collector of trees,
with a self-proclaimed Rage of planting, he established a major arboretum at Oriel Temple (Collon, County
Louth) as well as promoting agricultural improvement in Ireland. As speaker of the House of Commons, Foster had enormous political sway, and was certainly the force
behind the success of Wades petition, so that on the 5th April 1790 the Dublin Society Bill provided £300 towards
providing and maintaining a botanic garden. He retained a keen interest in the gardens, and exerted a considerable degree
of patronage as the Fostering Mantle. He believed that the gardens should be for the benefit of the practical
farmer as well as the academic botanist.